“Work as if you lived in the early days of a better nation.”—Alasdair Gray.

“If these are the early days of a better nation, there must be hope, and a hope of peace is as good as any, and far better than a hollow hoarding greed or the dry lies of an aweless god.”—Graydon Saunders

Iraqi resistance leader Abu Sarhan recently expressed 'a more restrained view' of the United States than might be expected from a veteran of the insurgency.

"I personally don't have a hatred of the American people, and I respect American civilization," he said. "They have participated in the progress of all the nations of the world. They invented computers. Such people should be respected. But people who are crying over someone who died 1,400 years ago" -- referring to Shiites and their veneration of a leader killed in the 7th century -- "these should be eliminated, to clear the society of them, because they are simply trash."

ISHTAR was incredibly funny but was destroyed by media denial trends. It isn't grasp-able because the culture it is parodying is beyond reason (with emotional betrayal). The song at the beginning (and end) is poetic on many levels.